


This is the future we've made

by persephone20



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-17
Updated: 2010-10-17
Packaged: 2017-10-21 22:32:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/230575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persephone20/pseuds/persephone20
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This one is totally inspired by <span><a href="http://coquilleon.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://coquilleon.livejournal.com/"><b>coquilleon</b></a></span>'s fic <a href="http://coquilleon.livejournal.com/7891.html?view=59347#t59347"> Postcards From Italy</a> that I loved so much and then had to continue because the last section was so full of meaning and emotion that I wanted to fill in what happened next.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is the future we've made

She's waking up in the bed they've shared on their postcard stay in Italy. They won't stay forever. Nothing really lasts forever, and that is what has made this stay here so special. It is of this that she's thinking as she slowly comes around to waking from her afternoon nap. That and the fact that they will probably be moving on soon.

The light comes into the room through thin curtains. Italy's cities are ones they enjoy in the day light. Some cities take them that way. Others are better enjoyed by night. The light in this room, in this city, causes Elena to squint as she opens her eyes. The first thing that she sees is Damon.

"Hey," she whispers. A sleepy smile curls her lips. She remembers the first time she woke up to him like this. After she was finished worrying about what Stefan would think, after she was finished worrying that Damon's interest in her was a passing fancy, what she had worried was that her breath would smell first thing after she woke up. She would hold her hand over her mouth to speak to him, and he would draw her hand away and kiss her.

There is a peculiar look in his eyes as he looks down to her restful form this morning. His brow is furrowed and he's staring at her intently. No morning quips today.

"Damon?" Elena starts to lift herself up from the bed. He is fully clothed, so he's been awake for a while now.

Before she is fully sitting upright, a blood red velvet box appears before her in his hand.

"Marry me," he says. Only that, and yet his eyes are heavy with doubt, and an emotion like he would shatter if she laughed or said no.

Elena doesn't see any of this, doesn't see anything except for the box. They've been living this life together now for a while, yet she'd never expected this. Just like she knew vampires couldn't have children, she'd never imagined they would get married.

Despite herself, her hand is reaching out for the velvet box, and it is then she becomes aware of Damon's gaze on her. Carefully, as though she is holding his heart, she takes the velvet box into her hands and opens it. Her lips part in a gasp at the first sight of the diamond and white gold ring within.

Damon hasn't moved. When she looks at him, she hopes that every thought she's feeling is evident on her face because she doesn't know how to say any of them. But there is still something hovering in his gaze, a protectiveness that he just won't allow himself to let go of when it comes to her, not even here. Not even now.

It takes her a couple of tries to get the words out. In the end, she keeps it very simple, so he can never misunderstand. "I will." Just that, and her arms suddenly around his neck. His arms are tight around her too, almost too tight, as though the emotions in him cause him to momentarily forget that she is still human, still fragile. She doesn't mind. He has taken her breath away, and she doesn't need it back yet.

When he takes the ring from her almost numb fingers, and places it upon the ring finger of her left hand, it is as though this is the most important gesture in his long life. They enjoy their last days in Italy. For Elena, she feels like she views it through different eyes. She hopes and thinks it might be the same for Damon too.

It's not until they are in Sweden that Damon mentions the other property in her engagement ring. Like much of the northern Netherlands, Sweden is a country better discovered by night. On the night he tells her, there are fireworks bursting in the sky for reasons neither of them have bothered to find out. They are sitting alone, close enough to each other that the words they say are almost spoken against each others' lips.

Afterwards, Elena is nervous. Damon has talked her through it. It had been talked about between herself and Stefan what felt like 100 years ago. But on none of those times was there the probability that they would come out of those conversations to actually make her a vampire.

It was like the first time having sex again. In this way, Damon would be her first, her only. She is reaching up to him from where she lies back on the bed.

"Are you ready?" he asks her, and he is searching her eyes. Sometimes, she thinks he is more perceptive of her own feelings than she is.

Too overwhelmed for words, Elena nods her head.

Damon's brows furrow. He moves very close to her, curving a hand behind her head and kissing her with all the passion of their earliest kisses. Possessiveness. A feeling of wonder that she is his. Something else.

"If you're not ready, we're not going to do this," he says.

"I'm... ready." Elena nods again. "I'm just nervous. What if it goes wrong?"

"It won't." Damon's mouth is a grim line at that insinuation. Elena trusts him. Wasn't it she herself who noted that everything he'd ever done had been for love? He loved her. There could be no safer place for her than in this room.

She opens her mouth and he offers his blood to her. What she doesn't see is the careful look in his eyes, the consideration in every muscle to make sure he does not stuff this up. Having accidentally made new vampires in the past, he didn't even think it was possible for him to fear stuffing this up. But there it was.

The blood runs out and Elena licks her lips to get the last of it. Damon leans down and kisses her lips, but it is a different kiss this time. Gentle, his tongue only shallowly exploring her mouth, his hands ever so light on her body. She leans into him, yearns for him.

"I love you," he says, and it is like he is working himself up to doing something so very awful.

Elena opens her eyes to meet his. "I trust you," she says, and it is the last thing she does before he snaps her neck.

  
Hours later, she wakes. He will never tell her that those are the worst hours he's lived through. Every breath he breathed in through his body, he wished desperately to be passed on to her. Every sound of a child playing outside became the absence of sound in their room. He didn't move, didn't look away, didn't touch or think of anything else in those hours. And when she gasped in her first unnecessary breath, he didn't notice the numbness of his own limbs. He only noticed that the life he'd known was not, in fact, over, not snuffed out forever by his own hands.

Her eyes are wild when she opens them. They don't quite see him, see anything, when they dart around the room. She becomes restless soon after that, jumping out of his arms and pacing around the bed without ever acknowledging him. She looks down at her ring finger, sees his ring there, and only then does the wildness in her begin to recede. This is the first time she looks at him again, see him from where he's come to stand near the door of their bedroom, giving her all the space that she needs until she remembers who she is, who he isand, hopefully, how she needs him as he needs her.

"Damon..?"

She whispers his name, and the sound of it almost breaks his heart. He is by her side with preternatural speed almost before she has said the second syllable of his name. Her arms are around his neck and she is clinging to him, clinging to him just as hard now as he is clinging to her.

"Come..." Damon has to clear his throat before he can get the words out properly. Her hand is in his and he is leading her out of their room. Pre-packaged blood won't be enough for her first feed. He knew that before he took this step. Although there is plenty of the packaged stuff in the fridge for later, he knows that now, he needs to take her, this woman he loves, out to hunt.


End file.
